Haunted
by Raven Morning
Summary: Left alone in another nameless motel room, Dean is forced to examine who he is and what exactly he became when he crawled out of Hell. Set earlier in the series, around the beginning of season four.


**So, I just got into the series recently, and I absolutely love it. I decided to write a fic based on Dean's torment following his escape from Hell, as that particular arc really touched me and broke my heart. This my first Supernatural fic, so please let me know what you think, and excuse any OC behavior -I'm still getting a feel for writing their characters. Hope yall enjoy it!**

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The rain dripped steadily off the roof onto the pavement outside the motel window, a constant _thp-thp-thp _that resounded in Dean's head. He lay sprawled across the dirty, stained mattress, his shoes kicked off along the short path from the door to the bed, yesterday's rumpled clothes still settled on his skin. He watched the window, the curtains drawn but too threadbare to block out the streaming white and red of headlights passing down the highway. The coolness of the night seeped into the room through the cracks and crevices of the glass panes.

It was too quiet.

Dean considered getting up, disassembling, cleaning and reassembling his arsenal of guns, or maybe going for a walk, even if it was fifty degrees and raining. At that point, he wouldn't have felt the cold anyway. Anything to distract himself, to pull him out of his own head. But still, he lay there, unable to find the willpower to move. He fingered the cap to a half empty whiskey bottle and considered taking another pull even though he still felt the tell-tale lingering burn on his tongue and streaking through his gut.

Sam was gone and it was too damn quiet.

His younger brother left thirty, forty minutes ago. Dean wasn't sure – he had lost perception of time since the door closed with the called promise to be back soon, and that yes, he would bring food, and no, he wasn't sure if there would be pie. At least with Sammy in the motel room he could focus on something other than the nightmares that slowly seeped over from his dreams to waking day. Every night, a different variation of the same thing. Blood, screaming, pain, the _godawful pain_ with no escape. Torture that lasted nearly ten years longer than the life he lived topside.

Even though Sam was the one with faith, Dean still found himself praying at night with shaky breath that his resurrection was not some perverse hallucination born of pain and suffering. Often, he would wake absolutely terrified that he'd open his eyes and he would be staring into the unfathomable darkness, strapped to the rack with a demon's hands in his intestines. But every time he would wake to a cracked motel ceiling and Sam's comforting presence in the next bed.

He'd nearly attacked Sam a few times, unable to distinguish memory from reality as he was shaken from another of his nightmares. For a few hellish seconds, Sam's face looked like Alistair's, his eyes gleaming white and his mouth twisted and dark. Sam was able to avoid desperate fists and flailing limbs most times, holding Dean down and telling him it was okay, that he was safe, that he would never let him go again.

Sam knew. Dean could see it in the way he would look at him when he didn't think Dean was paying attention. In the past few days though, he wasn't as covert in his concern. He took to openly studying Dean for long seconds at a time, whenever he woke up gasping, sweating, pleas forming on his lips. Whenever he drank too much too early and shrugged off Sam's questions in favor of moody silence.

But, it was for the best. It was to protect Sam. It was always to protect Sam. From the second that nursery caught fire, he ceased to be Dean; he was Sam's protector. That's what he did best. And although he might not have been able to stop Sam from dying, he brought him back. It wasn't even a thought to him at the time. Selling his soul to buy back Sam's was instinct. Do whatever you have to to protect your brother, his father would say to him. We're a family, John said, and you don't let family down. Even if it comes at a cost to you. After all, wasn't what that Dean does? He gives of himself over and over, hunting and killing and running in the name of his dead father's mission. So Dean offered the Crossroads Demon only thing he had, the dark and tarnished soul of someone he wasn't even sure was a person anymore.

And if he was a person before, he sure as hell wasn't one now. Not after the Pit. Not after those ten years. Dean winced at the memory, then quickly drowned the feeling in three more gulps of whiskey. No, Sammy might know some things, but he could never know this. Dean wouldn't be able to stand the horror and disgust that would stare back at him from his brother's face. His little brother would leave, and Dean would be lost in his weakness, his darkness, no light to reach down and pull him up. Dean wasn't sure he could survive that.

He wished he didn't enjoy it. If the tear of flesh and the warm splash of blood and the wet screams hadn't sent Dean reeling on a wave of pleasure, maybe he wouldn't hate himself just so much. But he would hear those cries and pleas of mercy, begging for far away loved ones to _just make it stop_, and he wouldn't listen. For ten whole years, he would hear things that came from his own mouth when he was stretched on the rack. But he wouldn't stop, and Alistair would only smile and tell him that he's on his way to greater things. He would never forget the things he did. He wished he could. He wished he could find forgiveness and absolution. Even being rescued from Hell by an angel and told that he has new purpose didn't seem like enough. What did that mean, anyway? Were the angels just using him like his father used him - a malleable tool, a perfect soldier that would march out and take the battlefield if given the order? Well, he was tired of fighting wars and following orders. If he had to be dragged kicking and screaming, he would, but he would not follow some damn god that he didn't believe in and that didn't believe in him. No god would create the world Dean lived in. No god would allow the evil he's seen and the pain he's felt go on. If there was a man upstairs, he was not good and he was not just - he was a damn bastard.

Dean pulled himself out of his dark reverie, tipping the bottle back once more before rolling to his feet. The room spun around him, but he ignored the dizziness and the pulse pounding somewhere in the pit of his stomach. His feet led him to the bathroom and he obeyed, the tile cool on his bare toes. The bottle settled on the dingy counter with a dull clink, and Dean reached over to turn on the sink taps, cool water flowing into his cupped palms. It was refreshing against his heated face, once, twice, three times, before he shut the water back off. Bracing himself on his arms against the edge of the counter, he shut his eyes and hung his head. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he looked up, just enough to catch a glimpse of his reflection. He stared, thinking that whatever looked back at him from that parallel world was someone completely different - twisted and dark - and hoped blindly that if he tried hard enough, maybe he could change.


End file.
